US and Iran trade fire for first time in a month

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Don't play games with us. A vicious gang of hackers causing chaos for businesses, councils and hospitals. Why, if I don't finish this treatment and this cancer grows? But they didn't care. I'm dying, clapping. Making outrageous demands for money. They wanted millions. It was high tech and high stakes. The country's under attack. And it was highly secretive. Until someone exposed it all. CyberHack season four, the Conti Files, all episodes available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

1:06I'm Charlotte Gallagher and in the early hours of Monday, the 31st of August, these are our main stories. The US launches strikes on an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz, the first attacks since July. How Russia is targeting Ukraine's culture and identity, one school book at a time, and the zoo that has managed to reopen in the Gaza Strip. Also in this podcast. They came and told me a big flood was coming. I'm here to take my daughter. Parents don't just rush in without good reason, so I realised I shouldn't waste a second and must evacuate the children. The teacher who saved hundreds of children from the devastating floods in Nepal. Iran and the US are once again facing off in the Strait of Hormuz. After Washington struck two rocket launchers on Iran's Iraq island,

2:10saying it was dealing with an imminent threat. Iran's revolution regards, say several fighters and civilians were killed and wounded in the attack, and vowed to retaliate later firing ballistic missiles at two US operated air bases in Jordan, which were intercepted. Commercial shipping through the Strait remained severely disrupted after six months of conflict. Peter Boes, our correspondent in the US, gave Nick Miles more details, starting with that original strike from the US, which was confirmed by officials. This would be the first known American strikes on Iran since late July. The official added that Islamic revolutionary guard corps forces were observed, preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz. We do have confirmation from both sides that this has happened. Iran's state news agency reported that the US carried out a drone strike, and Iran's revolutionary guards have said that the attack killed and wounded several soldiers

3:12and citizens and would be met with a response and punishment. And the context for this attack is what Donald Trump was saying just a few days ago, about mines in that particular area. Yes, Donald Trump was saying that all mines had been detonated or removed from the Strait of Hormuz, these crucially vital international waters, and that Iran had been told that any ship or boat placing new mines would be destroyed, which would appear, at least on the surface from what we're hearing, to have been what's happened in the last few hours. It seems as if as far as the United States has been concerned over the last week or so that they have moved away, or at least had moved away from military action, preferring to look at economic sanctions, but this does once again, an attack has been launched and Iran is promising retaliation. It's quite hard to say at this stage, isn't it, Peter? Quite how significant an uptick in the violence this may well be.

4:13Yes, and for that reason, perhaps we don't want to overplay this, because during the course of this war, which has gone on now for many months, there were times when it would appear that the negotiations had been making some progress, and then there will be a few skirmishes, but even as they were happening, oftentimes, certainly President Trump would say that it wasn't necessarily spoiling the negotiation process. That appeared to continue behind the scenes. Now, negotiations, as we understand it, are not happening. So I think maybe quite a lot of people on both sides of this will be holding their breath to see whether this potentially escalates. And any escalation of violence will be met with dismay, I imagine, by many Americans, right? Well, yes, and dismay from many Americans ever since this war started. As it has gone on, people being hit by high fuel prices, high petrol prices. And of course, there is a political element to this now, as we get closer to the midterm elections just over two months away at the beginning of November.

5:15And many polls here suggest that, certainly Donald Trump and the Republicans across the board are going to pay the price of this very unpopular war. Peter Boes. As we record this podcast, it's five days since flash floods ripped through the Nepal-Tibet border. 3,000 people are missing, 300 of them children. Their families say they're losing hope of hearing good news. Hospital walls across the region have been plastered with posters of their faces, as rescue efforts continue. Hundreds of those being searched for are believed to be employees trapped inside the tunnels of Nepal's hydroelectric plants. Many residents near the disaster zone don't have power and health workers have warned that supplies are running low, with enough food remaining for a day or two. Amid the loss and devastation, though, there have also been inspiring stories of survival. The BBC has spoken to agenda Duaadi, a head teacher who saved 900 students,

6:18telling them to run to higher ground minutes before the flood hit his school. They came and told me a big flood was coming. I'm here to take my daughter. Parents don't just rush in without good reason, so I realised I shouldn't waste a second and must evacuate the children. This 16-year-old described running up a narrow and muddy route with other students. My friends and I only made it by 10 seconds. The floods came all of a sudden. I couldn't walk fast, and my friends helped me to climb uphill. Within no time, the bizarre swept away in front of my eyes. But many did not manage to escape, nearly 800 people are now known to have died in the disaster. The authorities are collecting DNA samples from unidentified bodies and preparing mass burial sites. The Napoli journalist, Badras Sharma, has been to the worst affected areas. The local authorities have been struggling to manage the dead bodies because they are not

7:21identified and they have already started to decompose. Some of the rescuers told me they have started to vomit because of bad smell. Even the army, personal carrying those bodies are killing difficult to transport from one place to other places. The issue is that some of the bodies are not even intact. The rescuers have been recovering arm or leg or head, this sort of part of the body. I went to the hospital as well. They saw naked bodies there because their clothes were a little wiped out during the flood. They have lost everything. Being an experienced journalist, I have covered the 25-inch earthquake and the deadly ambulance in every day. I covered everything in Nepal in last two decades or so. But this time, the situation is more depressing there. While journalists are free to report from Nepal, information from across the border into

8:22the vet, which is controlled by China, has been limited. I asked our Beijing correspondent Laura Bicca about the latest there. We have heard from Chinese authorities that 16 people are confirmed to have died. More than 540 people are still missing. 261 of them are said to be foreign nationals. Now remember, one of the worst-hit areas was that area called Girong Port. It is the main land border between Nepal and Tibet. It was completely destroyed in those floods. What we have seen from Chinese state media footage is rescuers walking 10 kilometers through various parts of the Himalayan landscape, including scaling mountains, including crossing torrents of river. They are now going step by step through the mud and debris calling out for survivors. What they have said through Chinese state media is that so far they have yet to find any survivors. Those rescue operations had to be temporarily halted because there has been yet another landslide in the area which has formed a lake.

9:23Now, they set up observation points, so centuries to try to give an early warning system, to try to ensure that rescuers on the ground are really not swept away in further flooding. And we were talking the other day about you as a foreign journalist in China. It is nigh on impossible for you to go to that region. So you are having to rely on information that is coming out of Chinese state media. Everything we are telling you comes from Chinese state media. As a foreign journalist, I really can't go to Tibet. You need government permission to travel there and that has not been granted. I think when it comes to this area, it is one of the most carefully controlled areas in China. So I think it is worth remembering that this is carefully controlled state media. Does it seem like Nepal and China are working together a bit more after this? Well, we have heard yes that there has been a phone call between the two foreign ministers, between the Chinese and the poly foreign ministers. And what they are discussing is trying to find ways to share more hydrological and glacial data about the Himalayas because given the current

10:27climate and given that we know that global warming is going to perhaps make this kind of tragedy more either frequent or a risk, they have to find ways of avoiding it. That was Laura Bicke in Beijing. A series of Russian attacks has hit publishing houses and printing presses across Ukraine, destroying around 12 million books and leaving some school short of textbooks for the new term. It is not the first time Russia has been accused of targeting artistic and cultural sites in an attempt to damage symbols of Ukrainian heritage. Prior to the full-scale invasion four and a half years ago, Vladimir Putin questioned the legitimacy of an independent Ukrainian state and culture. Are Ukraine correspondent Dan Johnson reports from some of the places now feeling the impact of the war? On the edge of Ukraine's capital, the convoy publishing house bears the imprint of Russia's latest attacks. It's bombed out remains, testament to a dark new

11:28chapter of this war. The printing press has been almost completely destroyed, it's burned, the roof has collapsed here, you can still smell the aftermath and there are piles of charred books and then some others that have sort of survived but they've suffered water damage. These are actually English textbooks that should have been destined for schools. So I'm William and I'm from the UK. My dad is Ukrainian but my mom is British. My grandmother lives in Nottingham, it's a beautiful city. This means there's going to be a textbook shortage now for the start of the new term. The company's commercial director Victoria Haidai tells me the strike came just as they were ramping up to print 1.3 million textbooks. I believe it's deliberate on the part of the Russian Federation. Over the past two months some of the largest publishing houses have lost their warehouses where very large quantities of books were stored. The Russians are

12:29also destroying printing houses in an attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation but frankly they will not succeed. Keves Pochina's secondhand book market was also hit, burning down hundreds of stalls and destroying countless treasured books. In the smoldering ruins I met Liliya Velika, a book blogger determined to salvage something from the ashes. Books are saving us and losing this is like losing our hearts. It's not only books, museums, art galleries, opera houses and a film studio have been damaged. Symbols of collective identity Ukrainians believe are being targeted to undermine their sense of national belonging. An Russian drone hit the golden domes of Keves Pochiersk Lavra, a cultural and spiritual icon under UNESCO World Heritage Site. The decoration in here is incredibly ornate, there's gold leaf everywhere, it's seriously impressive with really detailed images and murals. There are fans running to try to

13:33dry this cathedral out because of the water damage and I can still smell the impact of the fire that tore through the roof. UNESCO Director General Khalid El Anani visited on the monasteries 975th anniversary. I was deeply saddened to see today the significant damage caused by June attacks. UNESCO firmly firmly condams them and all attacks against cultural property protected under international law. Russia denied targeting the Pochiersk Lavra and claimed to only attack sites with military links. Ukraine's Culture Minister Tatiana Berezhna dismisses that. This is existential war, so Russia wants to destroy us as a nation, to erase us as a nation like Ukrainians do not exist and have never existed. That's why Russia targets our cultural heritage.

14:34The symbols of our presence here for a lot of time they understand that it's very important for us because we protect our identity, protect our culture and Russia wants to ruin everything that it cannot appropriate. She says digitization can protect arts and literature and ensure children can learn even without physical books. But back at convie publishing, Victoria Haida captures the depth these attacks strike out. In the beginning was the word. The word is everything. It is our development, our culture and our historical heritage that has passed down from generation to generation. The word is born in a book and the book is born in a printing house. Vladimir Putin has denied the existence of a distinct Ukrainian culture, but the site of burning books means his war is only hardening determination here to ensure it survives. Dan Johnson, now to Cape Canaveral in Florida.

15:53That's the sound of NASA's powerful next generation space telescope taking off successfully. Named after the Space Agency's first woman chief of astronomy, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has a five-year mission to map more than a billion galaxies. It's set to provide larger, clearer images of stars and planets and helpers in our understanding of the mysterious components of dark energy and dark matter. Michael Strauss is a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University. My colleague Sean Lay spoke to him about what happens next in the mission. For the next three months, the spacecraft and the telescope will be making its journey to the so-called Lagrange two-point, which is a stable point in orbit around the earth and the sun about a million miles from earth. In three months from now, it will be able to open up its cameras and take its first images of the celestial sky. Is it just the case that this telescope

16:55has bigger cameras and therefore will generate bigger images? Or is it going to be able to do something different? Well, just bigger cameras is a big deal in our field. Instead of looking at some tiny piece of sky at once, it can image vast swaths of the universe. Much of what we do in astronomy is driven by mapping the universe. And this is a mapper in the sense that it can obtain data over a very large field of view and thus learn in some detail about the full statistical properties of galaxies and stars and how they're distributed in space. And those questions lead directly to our understanding of the structure of our Milky Way galaxy and the structure of the universe as a whole. What about the role of dark matter has been some talk about it playing a part in the expansion of the universe. Could this telescope help us explain that part? Absolutely, and that is one of the design goals for this mission. Dark matter is a material whose

17:57physical nature we do not understand. Only about 4% of the universe as we understand is made up of ordinary matter of the type that we're familiar with. Another roughly 25% is dark matter. There's another component, the accelerated expansion of the universe is driven by something that we call dark energy, dark matter and dark energy. Do we understand what these things are and exactly how they work? No, and this is what? One of the key goals of the Roman space telescope. Michael Strauss. Still to come in this podcast. We knew that's going to be an experience that we had to show up and be the first to see it. I'm super excited. I've been waiting literally a year for this movie. After a blockbuster summer for movies is the industry having an epic comeback. Don't play games with us. A vicious gang of hackers causing chaos for businesses,

19:02councils and hospitals. Why do I finish this treatment and this cancer grows? But they didn't care. I'm dying laughing. Making outrageous demands for money. It wanted millions. It was high tech and high stakes. The country's under attack. And it was highly secretive until someone exposed at all. Cyberhack season 4, the Conti files, all episodes available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Get more with BBC podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favorite shows, like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and Your Dead To Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts, ad free with an Amazon Music subscription. This is the Global News Podcast. As the Trump administration continues to push to increase deportations, the Haitian community in the US is now facing uncertainty after its

20:07protected status was cancelled. There are around 350,000 Haitians in the US and Washington is working to send them back to Haiti, where gang violence and lawlessness are part of daily life. On Sunday, mourners gathered in a hillside community near the capital Port of Prince after 47 people were killed, reportedly by gangs inside a church. Vice-Dortonville is the Haitian migrant who fled five years ago, and has since set up a new life in Springfield, Ohio. He spoke to Gary O'Donohue. I was not surprised because we have been at the heart of the situation since after the presidential campaign in 2024. There was the type of conspiracy theory of Haitians eating people's cats and dogs. I should say you're in Ohio in Springfield, where that was meant to suppose to be happening, though there was no evidence of any of it, right?

21:11Yeah, so when the Supreme Court of the decision to terminate the TPS, it was like they validated every racial slur that was said against the Haitians' community in Springfield. So, I mean, how scared are you of being deported right now? I am scared. I am so fearful, but you know, I just use my voice for the voiceless because the Haitian community in Springfield, they are so much vulnerable. I mean, there's some talk about people having to wear ankle bracelets as well. What circumstances would that have to happen? It has been so humiliating. They send them a check in letters, and they ask them to report to ICE Facility Center. And when they get there after interviewing them, they are being outfitted with this encolmonator. We call it a shackle because it symbolizes the

22:15shackle that the slaves used to wear during slavery time. It brings all type of humiliation to the folks. Some of them are not eating. Some of them are expressing themselves by saying words that has to do with the suicide, saying that if it weren't because of my kids, I would have killed myself. Rafe Tomasar Joseph is a Haitian-born journalist for an independent non-profit newsroom dedicated to reporting with and for immigrant communities. He explained what has been lost. It's a humanitarian program. The Congress created in 1990s. So, basically, it gives people from certain countries who are already in the United States and cannot safely return home due to ongoing armed conflict and our mental disaster, epidemics or other extraordinary circumstances. They offer these people temporary conditions. So, basically, they have a war permit,

23:20and they can remain in the country illegally until they can return safely home. That's the thing. What do you make of the US government saying it's okay to go back now? From what I've heard from many advocates, from many organizations, they say that the Trump administration contradicts itself because they have many core arguments and those arguments have been presented in different Amicus briefs. For example, the US Department of States maintains a level for the not-travel advisory for Haiti, which is the highest travel warning level. So, the advisory urges the US citizen not to travel to Haiti and advises those and the country to live as soon as it's safe to do so. So, the Federal Aviation Administration extended restriction bearing US commercial aircraft from flying below 10,000 feet over parts of Haiti.

24:22And now we have 1.5 million displaced people because of the gang violence and the gang's control 80% of Haiti's capital, total rents and many other areas in the country. Even this week, there have been a massacre. Rafe Thomas-Ark Joseph. To Gaza now, we're after nearly three years of war and with his raidi strikes continuing, a zoo has reopened there. It's in Karniunis in the southern part of the strip and his animals like monkeys, turtles, peacocks and parrots. Imad Kudiyar, who's a journalist in Gaza, went to visit the zoo. He asked the owner, Musa Abu Jamah, how he started caring for the animals. We started looking after a small number of animals and birds in a shelter at home for over 20 years. Then in 2023, we took a big step and opened a zoo, bringing in bigger animals for the first time. The war began a few months later and everything was destroyed. It affected

25:27everyone, people and animals. The losses were devastating. We were forced to leave the area and try to come back several times. When we returned, we found none of the animals had survived. This year, we began rebuilding from scratch, gathering whatever resources we could to create the zoo. One of the biggest challenges we've had is replacing the animals we'd lost. Buying animals is really expensive now, but we're determined to rebuild. Why did you decide to re-op in an animal zoo in this area? The main reason we opened is because there's a lack of recreational spaces for children and families, particularly in the southern Gaza Strip. Also, we love animals and birds. We have a close connection and are committed to raising them. The most beautiful thing we see is the smiles of children, young people and girls, especially under difficult circumstances we are living through. Unfortunately, the attacks are still continuing despite the existence of a ceasefire.

26:29Strikes and attacks continue to affect all areas across the Gaza Strip. Because of this, we do our best to provide children with psychological support and emotional relief through play activities and interaction with animals. Our aim is to bring a smile to their faces, even if for a few moments. When we see them smile and feel the joy in their hearts, that happiness is reflected in us as well. What do you hope exactly this animal's going to provide the local community with? I always hope to see the smiles and faces of Palestinian people, especially our children and young people, and to see them happy and full of joy. I also hope that they can overcome the painful moments they've experienced during the war, and even if only for a while, move beyond the suffering and tragedies that they've endured throughout this devastating conflict. God willing, the situation will improve and everything will eventually be all right.

27:30Summer has been a good one for Hollywood. Two films, Spider-Man, Brand New Day and the Odyssey, have been breaking audience records around the world. So are we witnessing a return to health for an industry that has struggled since COVID? As the lucrative summer season draws to a close, our film correspondent Tom Brook has been looking for implications for cinema going and the Hollywood studios. For many, the summer of 2026 will be remembered for the intense heat and for the movies. The Odyssey based on an almost 3,000 year old ancient Greek poem and the new Spider-Man adventure Brand New Day have excited moviegoers around the world. We knew that's going to be an experience we had to show up and be the first to see it. I'm super excited. I've been waiting literally a year for this movie. In the US alone, box office is now heading for its best post-pandemic year. Paul the Garibadian is head of marketplace trends at RennTrack and Los Angeles.

28:31Overall, to me, this is maybe the most interesting dynamic and consequential summer I've ever seen in my 34 years of tracking and analyzing box office. The summer movie season got a huge boost in mid-July when the epic the Odyssey directed by Christopher Nolan held its world premiere here in Leicester Square in London. Not only did it take off rapidly at the box office, but it created animated discussions both in the real world and online about its content, its casting, but peaked the interest of individuals who don't normally go to see movies. The Odyssey was just one of several movies, the BBC film critic Nicholas Barber saw the summer to him, the Odyssey was more than just a movie. It's very rare for a film to become a cultural phenomenon where people are discussing the film, they're arguing about the film, there's Elon Musk getting upset about the film, so it's one that even if you haven't seen it, people are talking about it. I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man brand new day wasn't even bigger commercial success,

29:36it brought in more than $2 billion globally in record time. Together with the low-cost horror blockbusters obsession and backrooms made by YouTube filmmakers, movie going has most definitely picked up, but for many going to the cinema still remains a sporadic activity and one that's seen as too expensive. If there's a lesson to be learned from the summer movie season, it's that originality can pay off. Nobody thought the Odyssey, a nearly three-hour epic with a restrictive rating based on an ancient poem, could become such a massive hit. A movie with an impact amplified by social media. Despite the excitement surrounding box office revenues, the fundamentals aren't so reassuring. By one estimate, the number of cinematic it's bought in North America is down by 37% from pre-COVID times,

30:38but revenues are higher because of increases in ticket prices and the presence of premium formats such as iMacs as was the case with the Odyssey. Tom Brook reporting. And that's all from us now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at BBC World Service, use the hashtag globalnewspod and don't forget our sister podcast, the global story. This edition of the global news podcast was mixed by a resentment Dorel and the producer was Alfie Habershon. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Charlotte Gallagher. Until next time, goodbye. A vicious gang of hackers causing chaos for businesses, councils and hospitals. Why if I don't finish this treatment and this cancer grows? But they didn't care. I'm dying, laughing.

31:40Making outrageous demands for money. There weren't even millions. It was high tech and high stakes. The country's under attack. And it was highly secretive. Until someone exposed it all. Cyberhack season four, the Conti files. All episodes available now, wherever you get your BBC podcast.